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This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

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Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#51

Post by hfsktr »

dfc wrote: post #39
taejo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reasoning is not present in the comment you're replying to (it says "like" where you've read "therefore")

I am unsure of how you could read the comment in any other way. How would you restate the argumentative form in the comment?

I read it as a question, because of the question mark, not a statement/argument.

If one extreme (high salt) is bad, is the other extreme (no salt) also bad?

I suppose it could be an argument but the way I read it was that they were unsure and would like to know more.

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#52

Post by linhat »

dfc wrote: post #39
taejo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reasoning is not present in the comment you're replying to (it says "like" where you've read "therefore")

I am unsure of how you could read the comment in any other way. How would you restate the argumentative form in the comment?

Just to be clear, I meant that water collected from pure air should have no salt in it at all, so drinking large amounts of it will be unsafe as it will draw those salts from your body (osmosis and diffusion), just like drinking large amounts of seawater might increase your blood pressure, but more importantly, it's very hard for your body to get it out of your system, your urine produced by your kidneys is not saltier than saltwater, so you need more water than you can drink (with seawater) to get it out again.

So my original question still stands, is it unsafe to drink large amounts of water collected from pure air and do they have to take care of that in any way? Or will simply eating salty food fix it? I still have not found an answer in the article.

EDIT: From further below in the thread:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatraemia

and its counterpart:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypernatraemia

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#53

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

linhat wrote: post #52
dfc wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am unsure of how you could read the comment in any other way. How would you restate the argumentative form in the comment?

Just to be clear, I meant that water collected from pure air should have no salt in it at all, so drinking large amounts of it will be unsafe as it will draw those salts from your body (osmosis and diffusion), just like drinking large amounts of seawater might increase your blood pressure, but more importantly, it's very hard for your body to get it out of your system, your urine produced by your kidneys is not salti…

It's dangerous if you're dehydrated and drink a lot of soft water (that's the term for water with low/no mineral content) at once, otherwise it's okay as long as most minerals come from the diet.

Tap water in most places has a GH/KH of 0 (to avoid clogging pipes with carbonates) and nobody dies from it.

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#54

Post by icefox »

sandy23 wrote: post #29

Not just Africa, there are many places in India mainly the tribal villages where the women walk for more than 3 kms to carry 10 litres of fresh water.

Heck, places in the U.S. need water, why start in Ethiopia where the trial costs will be higher?

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#55

Post by sitkack »

clhodapp wrote: post #41
bryanlarsen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article, it's temperature differential that's important. So it works in the desert, which has 50 degree swings between day and night. Many places with high moisture content have much smaller swings in temperature, so it might not work as well in the jungle.

Alternately, the article is incorrect/oversimplifying. It's pretty easy to see that it is at least oversimplifying with a simple thought experiment: Suppose we were to place a Warka Tower in an airtight with a humidity of 0% (no water in the air) and with an air temperature of 120°F. Then suppose we were to drop the chamber temperature to 40°F. By all accounts, this is a huge change in temperature for a human-habitab…

Step 1, find 0% humidity, where are you going todo that where people are living? Strawman.

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#56

Post by sitkack »

stevewilhelm wrote: post #45

I am curious how a project like this, which has been around since July of 2012 [1], gets such an intense amount of media coverage all in a the last two weeks: Wired, Daily Mail, Smithonian, Engaget, Huffington Post, and now HN. [2] [1] http://s831.us/1qr8eNO [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=WarkaWater

Because of a PR push, nothing wrong with that.

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#57

Post by joveian »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #53
linhat wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, I meant that water collected from pure air should have no salt in it at all, so drinking large amounts of it will be unsafe as it will draw those salts from your body (osmosis and diffusion), just like drinking large amounts of seawater might increase your blood pressure, but more importantly, it's very hard for your body to get it out of your system, your urine produced by your kidneys is not salti…

It's dangerous if you're dehydrated and drink a lot of soft water (that's the term for water with low/no mineral content) at once, otherwise it's okay as long as most minerals come from the diet. Tap water in most places has a GH/KH of 0 (to avoid clogging pipes with carbonates) and nobody dies from it.

Specifically, if your body is low on electrolytes it will hold water until it gets them and that holding of excess water causes problems. However, almost any amount of food is sufficient to prevent that.

However, in this case I tend to doubt the water will be all that pure due to dust; I'd guess it will actually have a decent mineral content. Commercial water purifiers often produce mineral-free water and the only issue I have heard of in connection with this (at least as long as you are eating any food) is that most people find that the resulting water tastes bad. Adding minerals back is not difficult at all.

Edit: Sounds like it is a little more complicated than that; the WHO paper that the Wikipedia article that sbierwagen cites is a good read with 16 pages on this topic. One thing they mention as a potential issue is that cooking food in low mineral content water can leach minerals from the food. If the food is then consumed but the water isn't, that would lower mineral intake (discarding water used in the first cooking of some beans is necessary because it removes toxins from the beans but these beans can be a good nutrient source, so this could still potentially be an issue where water is scarce). The Wikipedia article could be skipped, though, so here is a direct link to the paper: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientschap...

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#58

Post by ghshephard »

bigbugbag wrote: post #35
ghshephard wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as the water is reasonably clear, just leaving it in a plastic bottle in the sun for a day or so will get the water safe enough to drink. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection http://www.irinnews.org/report/79172/benin-sunshine-plastic-... And this water is not ground water - so all of the many, many normal types of ground pollution are being avoided.

You're supposed not to drink water from a plastic bottle which has been exposed for some time to the sun.

All things equal, I'd rather deal with a small risk associated with pollutants leeching from the bottle, than the much higher risk associated with diarrhea-causing organisms in the water.

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#59

Post by ghshephard »

briantakita wrote: post #46
philtar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hi. We're warka tower. Pay $1000 and we'll make two warka towers, one for you and one for africa. You must pick up yours* *If you fail to pick it up in X days we'll take it to Africa"

This would be a great Burning Man exhibit.

Part of the playa environment would work in their favor (Cold at night, Warm in the day) - but there are two elements in the playa that would likely make these ineffective.

1. Playa Dust - that stuff gets in everything - and this water tower would be choked with the stuff almost immediately. Cleaning it would be challenge (to put it lightly

2. More problematically, the condensation tower/Air well works on the principle of collecting dew that forms on a low temperature substrate. The humidity near gerlach is close to 38 percent, and I don't recall ever seeing much in the way of condensation ever....

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#60

Post by ghshephard »

sitkack wrote: post #55
clhodapp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternately, the article is incorrect/oversimplifying. It's pretty easy to see that it is at least oversimplifying with a simple thought experiment: Suppose we were to place a Warka Tower in an airtight with a humidity of 0% (no water in the air) and with an air temperature of 120°F. Then suppose we were to drop the chamber temperature to 40°F. By all accounts, this is a huge change in temperature for a human-habitab…

Step 1, find 0% humidity, where are you going todo that where people are living? Strawman.

Even the Desert Playa, which cracks your skin, and causes throats to dry out, has a low of 17% humidity, and an annual average of 45% humidity.
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